20 Ways to Earn Money While You're Sleeping

Posted by Doug Murray on June 26, 2017

Why slog from 9 to 5 every day to make money if you can earn an income doing nothing? Most ways of earning a passive income require some initial effort, but soon you’ll be earning money while you sleep. Here are some ideas to get you started!

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1. Invest in Real Estate

When you invest in real estate, you can make money as the value of the property increases, but you’ll only see that money once you sell the property. If you’d rather have the cash flow now, invest in real estate that will bring you rental income.

4. Write and Publish a Book

E.L. James wrote and self-published a piece of fan fiction that took the world by storm and led to two sequels and a movie. The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy earned her $95 million just in 2013. Being a published author can earn you royalties, with Amazon paying every month.

6. Start a Drop Shipping Website

Canada’s Shopify is most people’s go-to platform for creating online stores that offer drop shipping. With drop shipping, you have a site that offers certain manufacturers’ products and when someone orders something through your site, your system simply sends the order to the relevant manufacturer.

7. Get an Autoresponder for Your Online Business

With an autoresponder, you can provide good customer service without actually having to do anything. It sends an automatic response to emails and you can later follow up with the customer. You can also use autoresponders for marketing purposes.

8. Create an Online Course

Creating an online course requires quite a bit of initial work, such as writing ebooks or articles and creating videos. Once these course materials are up and running, though, your system will automatically send subscribers what they need.

10. Buy and Sell Websites

Flipping websites is like flipping houses without all the work involved. You simply buy an existing site, tweak it a bit and then sell it at a profit. However, you need to do your research to buy sites that really are profitable.

11. Become a YouTuber

Many regular people have become millionaires simply by making and uploading videos on YouTube. Every time someone views one of your videos, you make money from the ads that appear on the site. The secret is to gain a huge number of followers by uploading videos that appeal.

12. Sell Stock Content

Publishers of books, magazines and websites all use stock images such as photographs or graphics as illustrations and pay a licensing fee to the people who created the images. Stock content can also include videos, music and sound effects.

14. Buy a Laundromat

Buying an established laundromat business is cheaper than starting one from scratch. If you then get someone else to do the day-to-day running, which doesn’t require a lot of effort, you can simply watch the money come in.

15. Buy a Vending-machine Business

A vending-machine business requires almost no effort. For it to be successful, though, you need to place your vending machines in the right spots and stock them with what the customers in that area would want.

17. Rent Your Possessions

You can earn a rental income from more than just your home. In fact, you can rent out almost anything on sites like Craigslist, from clothing to sports equipment and power tools. Be sure though to ask for a security deposit and a cash payment upfront, as well as ID and proof of address.

18. Let Someone Else Run Your Business

Once your business is established and making enough money, you may be able to afford getting a trusted, competent person to run it for you. Many of the world’s richest people have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of their businesses except attending a board meeting once in a while.

19. Peer-to-Peer Lending

With peer-to-peer lending, you lend money to people who don’t qualify for traditional financing and then make money on the interest. In Canada, this is still quite new but Lending Loop is a secure, regulated and easy-to-use peer-to-peer lending marketplace.

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20. Get a Job That Pays You to Sleep

Believe it or not, there are people who will pay you for literally sleeping on the job. The most common ways to earn money this way are to take part in sleep studies or to test mattresses and bedding. You don’t even need to worry about what to wear to work.